As part of the Vining substation renovation, the City of Powell will cut off power to all customers for two nights next week.

The first power outage will begin at 11 pm on Thursday, October 28, and is expected to end around 3 am. During this period, the staff will activate new equipment for half of the stations. In the next few days, the city will monitor the equipment to ensure its normal operation. 

Then at 11pm on Monday, November 1, the city's power will be turned off again so that the staff can switch the city to the new device. The power outage is expected to last for six hours. 

Once the transformation of the entire substation is completed, it will have two 20 MW transformers in use instead of two 10 MW transformers. However, the blackout next week will only affect half of the new substation, which means that the city will be powered by a 20-megawatt transformer until the next phase is ready in early spring. When the part is ready, the city will need additional power outages to bring it online. 

The city originally planned for the first power outage in the summer, but electrical equipment is as prone to supply problems as many products today. City chief Zack Thorington said the city was fortunate to have ordered most of the items for the project before supply chain problems emerged, otherwise the delay would be worse. 

Thorrington said: "We are lucky that we ordered parts before anyone knew what COVID was." 

The last time the city’s councillor Zane Logan, who served as city administrator when installing transformers in substations in the early 1990s, said that these power outages occurred on a cold February morning, with temperatures and winds below freezing.

The city will benefit from putting the first transformer into service after the summer, because it will not withstand the kind of load that occurs during high air-conditioning operation like the substation during the high temperature period of this summer. 

The weather temperature for the planned power outage next week will be around 30 degrees and the wind will be relatively small. Thorrington said that if the weather turns bad, the city is prepared to postpone the blackout. 

Thorrington said he and Powell’s power director “have discussed this situation, and as of now, the weather seems to be cooperating.” 

Thorington recommends that residents turn up the heating at night to store some heat in their homes during power outages. He added that the power outage may be shorter than planned, but there are too many uncertain factors to be sure. 

The Weining substation caught fire in June 2019, causing the city to lose power for several hours. The city has carried out a $3.1 million refurbishment project while keeping the substation in normal operation. The entire project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022. 

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128 South Bent Street Powell, WY 82435 1-307-754-2221